Eternal Storms

I shot this self portrait a week or two ago after enduring months of worse-than-usual depression. Some was due to outside influences, bad news, being sick and other things that any normal, healthy person would feel depressed about. But a lot of it was that irrational, heavy, demanding, life-draining depression that is clinical depression. This is not feeling sad about things that you should feel sad about. This is round-the-clock, punishing joylessness, sucking the beauty out of everything, leaving all around you colorless and meaningless. This is clinical depression.

I’ve battled this beast since it first started manifesting in my early teens. It took me some time before I learned that what I was feeling was an actual condition, a potentially solvable problem, not just a bad mood that hung around for years. I’ve also tried more remedied to it that I can recount; anti-depressants, therapy, energy work, supplements, yoga, getting more exercise (before I had ME; over-doing exercise now could do me great harm), self-help books, seminars, journaling, art therapy… on and on and on.

And it still clings.

I decided to start a series specifically addressing mental illness; clinical depression and anxiety in particular, since those are the two I fight with most. I manage them, sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes I want to just die. I don’t know if it will ever go away completely, thus the series title Eternal Storms.

I identify with Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, with his constant dark cloud covering just him. I’m sure that was subconsciously part of the inspiration for this piece. When I’m going through a bout of depression, this is what it feels like to me. A dark storm raging round my head, that only I see and feel. It makes the idea of asking for help feel pointless; even if I break up this cloud, another will come. And the social stigma of admitting you need help at all, let alone help with your mental health, makes it all the worse. If I’m having a week where I have to talk myself into continuing to live each day, I can’t talk about it except for a few select, very trusted friends who have also been there, as well as my therapist.

I shot this self portrait as a way to work through the cloud I was under, yes, but more importantly, to directly address depression and its stigma. Admitting you have or struggle with depression doesn’t make you weak or unworthy. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re not trying hard enough, eating right or getting enough exercise. It just IS. And society needs to learn to stop judging those who do manage to ask for help.

The alternative is that we suffer in silence with our tormentor. And that can kill.

Joel Robison happened to put up an insightful blog about his own battle with depression recently, which was a happy coincidence. I’m very glad for people like him who will stand with me and admit that yes, we have depression. It may not make sense to you, you may not understand it, it might *gasp* make you uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it will go away.We are no less human that you. We did not ask for this fight. This is not an attention-seeking behavior. This is real, this illness is out for blood. This is just our fight. This matters. And it can be won.One storm at a time.

This series is dedicated to all the others who fight this battle with me every day. You are all so strong and so brave. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Dear Sarah, I’m sorry to hear about your most recent bout of depression! Happy belated birthday! I apologize for not emailing you on the 3rd. I’m having a hard time keeping track of dates lately and sort of looked at my calendar on August 4th and went “fuck!”. I hope you had a lovely day full of reminders that you are special and significant. Did my snail mail letter reach you close to your birthday, at least? <3A P.S. Pour vous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qFXdgqCcq8

Oh, it’ll pass… it’s only been three or four months, what’s another one? 😉 If Maynard would stop looking vaguely sick, that would make everything about 1000 times better in itself.

Thank you! Not to worry at all. I always forget to email you on your actual birthday and it’s a much more memorable date! I haven’t seen the letter yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for it. I’ve had a couple things take longer to get here than expected, so it may be that the postal system here is a little sporadic. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it gets here! That’s something nice to look forward to 🙂 And my birthday was very nice, thank you! Very mellow, which was exactly what I wanted.

Dang Sarah your face in this portrait is so on point. I think it says more than the entire blog post (which is a wonderful post). I’m sure it takes a lot to post something like this in which you talk so freely and openly about something that I’m sure makes some people uncomfortable. I think it’s great that you’ll be channeling these emotions into beautiful artwork, this has potential to be a very powerful series indeed!

Oops! Somehow this email got by me, sorry about that! Thank you so much!! It can be a little nerve-wracking to speak so frankly, but I really do feel it’s important to to talk more about. The fact that it is uncomfortable shows how far we need to go. But I do believe we’ll get there! Thanks so much for your encouragement about the image and the series!! You’re the best 🙂

Oo yes! Major-scale yes.
ME – there have been times I’ve felt so ill with it I have just wanted not to be. Then it passes, thankfully. And thank goodness having ME means I don’t have the energy to do the ‘not being’ business.
I know the things you write of and we’re safe, in ourselves, as long as we just let things pass.

Haha, yes, that is one silver lining to ME; at your worst, you’re probably too bad off to do anything drastic about it 😉 The clouds always pass, sometimes much more quickly than others, but they do. Though I’d often appreciate it if they’d move along a little faster!